1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a parts supplying apparatus for automatically feeding one or more kinds of parts, such as different shapes of slider pull tabs, end stops and coupling elements for slide fasteners, or different shapes of button components, which are accommodated in a scattered and mixed fashion in a parts feed unit, successively to a subsequent station while they are separated individually, and for separating the parts in sorts.
2. Description of the Related Art
Attempts have been made to meet recent demands for production of a good assortment in a small amount. To this end, for flexible manufacturing, it has been customary to treat one or more kinds of parts at the same time, and more particularly to treat these mixed parts as a unit, with the rate of production in view, as the amount of parts of each kind is only small, and then to separate the parts in sorts prior to feeding them to a subsequent station.
Generally, this conventional separate feeding is carried out using a known parts feeder as disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Publication No. SHO 50-12341. The parts feeder has a basic structure in which a rotary disk is concentrically mounted on a bottom of a bottom-closed cylindrical tube fixed to a frame and is intermittently rotatable. The fixed cylindrical tube has an inside diameter slightly larger than that of the rotary disk to define a parts guide gap along the inner circumferential surface of the fixed cylindrical tube. A parts guide having an upper slant guide surface extends in the direction of rotation of the rotary disk from the bottom of the fixed cylindrical tube to its parts outlet port.
With this conventional parts feeder, plenty parts scattered over the rotary disk are moved radially on the disk towards its circumference to gather around the inner circumferential surface of the fixed cylindrical tube as the rotary disk is rotated intermittently. While the gathered plenty parts are moved circularly along the inner circumferential surface of the fixed cylindrical tube in response to rotation of the rotary disk, some of the parts will be caught and picked up by the tip end of the slant surface of the parts guide and will then climb the guide up to the parts outlet port as pushed forward by the succeeding parts picked up the next time.
However, only a few of the above-mentioned parts have simple planar shapes, and most of them have complex cubic shapes, many of which have projections at some portions and holes at the other portions. Therefore the parts-would tend to get tangled with one another, while being fed along the parts guide of the parts feeder, and would occasionally remain interlocked all the way to the parts outlet port so that complete separation of the parts cannot be guaranteed.
In recent years, on many occasions, a plurality of kinds of parts different in shape are fed by the same parts feeder while being separated. In this case, these kinds of parts will be individually discharged from the parts feeder and will then be separated in sorts, whereupon the separated parts will be conveyed to the next station. However, the parts having different shapes would tend to get tangled on the parts guide of the parts feeder and to remain interlocked all the way to the parts outlet port so that unnecessary kind of parts would tend to be mixed in the next station.